Emerging Lessons

This page logs lessons emerging from the Forum for Food Security in Southern Africa's analysis of longitudinal evidence and comparative international experience. For more details, see the synthesis paper (495kb).

The food crisis

Concerns over food availability mounted in 2001 as it became clear that the harvest for the 2000-01 crop season was lower than average in parts of several countries, that national grain stores were depleted, and that a poor harvest was predicted for the 2001-02. By late 2001 acute malnutrition and famine were reported for localised cases, particularly for some districts of Malawi. Governments and donor agencies took time to react, so that it was only from February 2002 onwards that disasters and emergencies were officially declared, and plans were drawn up for a major relief programme. The UN Emergency Programme (EMOP 10200) was launched in July 2002, appealing for 1Mt of food aid at a cost of US$500M plus another US$111M for health, water and other recovery activities for the six worst-affected countries Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe. By late 2002 as many as 14.5M people were assessed as being in need, 359kt of food aid had been delivered and 1.4Mt commercial food imports had been delivered to the six countries.

Defining the crisis and assessing needs for humanitarian relief

The crisis was defined as one of food shortage. But it is not clear by how much this compares to more normal conditions. It is known, for example, that many poor farming households produce too little staple food to cover their household needs and commonly face a deficit in the months leading up the next harvest. Country- and region-wide estimates of the supply of grains have shown a gap between that available and that needed, and yet field surveys have only in few, geographically limited instances shown acute malnutrition at levels of young children above 10%.

The assessment of needs has not been systematic. National and regional assessments by the Vulnerability Assessment Committees show good co-ordination amongst agencies, but they are essentially concerned with distributing food aid to district level.

The food crisis appears to be dwarfed by the effects of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, yet until recently this has not been seen as a humanitarian disaster by governments and donors. HIV/AIDS is both a contributory cause of food insecurity as well as being exacerbated by under-nutrition. Some have argued that the effects of HIV/AIDS terminally undermine the rural economy, prevent people from coping with food shortages. But there is as yet too little evidence to prove or disprove this hypothesis.

Causes of the crisis

The climatic events of 2001-02 were less severe than those of the 1991-92 drought, but they have apparently had much greater impact on the countries concerned. It seems that people are more vulnerable to climatic shocks than before. Amongst the reasons for this are:

• Economic failures: the decline of mining and the slow growth of formal employment in manufacturing industry and services in urban areas have led to unemployment, less work for migrants from rural areas, an increasing fraction of the workforce employed informally, falling real wages, and reduced remittances. This has not only meant wider and deeper incidence of urban poverty, but also reduced support to rural communities providing migrants. Government revenues have stagnated making it more difficult for them to provide services. Agriculture, the mainstay of the rural economy, has stuttered in many parts of the region in the 1990s. From the 1960s to mid-1980s there was some success in promoting smallholder farming through state action to supply inputs, technical assistance and credit, to buy output, and to set (pan-territorial and pan-seasonal) prices. This was abandoned as too costly, inefficient, and inflexible. Hence from the mid-1980s onwards the agricultural economy was liberalised. Private firms were expected to take the place of parastatals, but this has not always happened. Farm output grew more slowly in 1990s than in previous decades;
  
• HIV/AIDS pandemic: with effects of loss of labour to farming, the cost of care in medicines and time of carers, and trauma amongst the victims of the pandemic;
  
• Less effective government action: most governments in the region, as well as regional bodies such as SADC, were less well equipped to deal with the crisis than before. By 2002 they faced pressure on public budgets and loss of staff to HIV/AIDS.
• Vulnerability is markedly differentiated in rural areas, even when the large majority has access to land in smallholding communities. Those particularly at risk include those marginalised economically through lack of land, capital and tools, livestock; lack of literacy and other formal skills the 'working poor' and 'underemployed poor'. But there are also those marginalised socially and physically by gender (women and girls), age (children, elderly), sick and disabled conditions that often overlap with economic marginality who are often chronically poor, unable to work, and have fewer options to cope. Poor households are usually net buyers of food, even in a good farming year. They may represent from one- to two-thirds of rural population. Little is known about the conditions of the poor in peri-urban and urban areas, other than a realisation that, given the economic problems outlined, they are increasing in number.

Responses to the crisis

Government, donor and NGO programmes
Donors raised concerns about specific issues. In many instances response was initially slow. Governments usually did not react to their early warning systems.

Government and donor response focused on food and food production. Typically they responded by programmes of direct food distribution, either for free, or in return for work. In some cases, food programmes specially for children and for those with HIV/AIDS and TB were established. Food distribution faced difficulties of targeting accurately and fairly.

In Malawi, government has provided starter packs of seed and fertiliser to the poorer farm households. In the case of Lesotho, food prices have been subsidised, and in Zimbabwe they have been controlled.

Coping by victims
Reports indicate that vulnerable households coped with the crisis by a familiar roster of adaptations and acceptance of hardship, including:

• Changed and reduced consumption: reduce meal portions, skip meals, switch to inferior foods, eat wild foods; buy less medicine and drugs; remove children from school to save on school fees and costs;
  
• Liquidate assets sell livestock, but prices falling at a time when grains become more expensive, so that the terms of trade have moved strongly against livestock;
  
• Seek extra work, male migration, taking up often petty and informal jobs such as collecting fuel and water, women and girls sometimes reduced to prostitution; and,
  
• Call on gifts from friends, neighbours, and family, seek aid from governments and donors.
  

For the physically marginalised, the options to cope by taking up other jobs or migrating are usually not available.

It seems likely that as in 1991-92, for most people getting through the crisis was more the result of their coping, than from public relief. This is not to say that relief programmes were not significant and well received, but the public programmes need to be set in the context of private self-help.

Prospects for economic growth for poverty reduction and food security

Reducing vulnerability depends on poverty-reducing growth. One way to look for this is to separate the production of tradable goods and services, potential 'drivers' of growth, from non-tradable goods and services that may support growth. Smallholder agriculture is likely to be a key component of most growth strategies. The output from rural non-farm activity is largely non-tradable, but there may be some options for increases in tourism in some areas. Large-scale commercial agriculture may be a driver in the (limited) areas where such large farms exist. Prospects for growth from mining and manufacturing industry appear limited.

For poverty reduction, the impacts of economic growth on labour markets is critical in generating additional demand for unskilled labour and pushing up wage rates. For the poorest households, lower (and stable) real food prices are also important.

Improved food security is a matter of increased availability of food and, equally importantly, access to it. On the former, domestic production and stocks are likely to be central, since most countries are land-locked and have poor transport systems, thus pushing up the value of domestic supplies. Own production of food will be important for access to food for many rural households, even for those that can only produce a part of their annual needs. Otherwise access is a matter of having adequate cash incomes, or the means to barter or having the possibility to participate in public food-for-work schemes.

Getting (smallholder) agriculture moving will mean having an enabling macro environment, but also providing a comprehensive package of support services needed if farmers are to respond. This in turn requires: greater investment, both public and private; the reform of key public sector agencies; and co-ordination. Much more work needs to be done to develop coordination services provided by a range of stakeholders.

Policy processes and learning

Some political economists suggest policy-making in Southern Africa may be set within a political context marked by:

• 'Neo-patrimonial' democracy: where clientelism is endemic; political authority rests on giving and receiving of favours, within a modern state with presidentialism; and,
  
• States typically have low capacity, but high autonomy owing to very weak non-state actors.
  

Economic reforms to date have been partial. For example, the non-implementation or reversal of marketing and input supply reforms are widespread. It may thus be argued that critiques that stress market failures may be premature, since policy reversals have made the private sector unwilling to risk investment in markets where governments may intervene or control. Failures of market development may thus have political causes.

Indeed, it can be argued that structural adjustment in general has been tamed. Partial implementation of reforms has taken place, with austerity for most of the population, patronage resources protected, under-investment in institutions, and little revenue effort. Aid, provided with non-credible conditions, has enabled this to happen, thereby arresting normal policy learning.

External actors have proved part of the problem. External actors have incentives to 'move money', and policy conditionality is often not credible. The emerging consensus stresses that political change is critical, but that donors are at best ill-equipped to support such change. Much more work needs to be done to transform the aid relationship.